Swapping In Healthy Fats Cuts Heart Disease Risk

Cutting saturated fat—found in butter and fried foods—can help improve heart health, but the foods you choose as replacements matter, too. Among 127,536 adults followed for two to three decades, 7,667 had fatal or nonfatal heart attacks. Based on their food survey responses, researchers calculated that swapping about 100 calories of saturated fat daily with the same amount of unsaturated fat—found in foods such as canola and olive oil and nuts—reduced the heart disease risk by 15 to 25 percent. Subbing the same amount of calories in high-fiber carbohydrates such as whole grain bread lowered the risk by 9 percent. In contrast, replacing saturated fat calories with carbohydrate calories from refined sugar, such as in sugared drinks, or starches such as white bread, raised the risk by 10 percent. Source:Journal of the American College of Cardiology, published online Sept. 28, 2015